7/20/2011

Dash Cam: Police arrest Ohio Permit holder

Police have an extremely difficult and dangerous job, but at least as far as I can tell from this video I think that the officer over reacted some. It will be interesting to see if this case is quickly dropped.Starting at about 6:45 into the video.

Officer: "Why do you keep having that? What is this?"Driver: "Because I have a concealed carry . . . "Officer: "Do you have a weapon on you?"Driver: "Yes sir. Thats why . . . "Officer: "Lock your hands behind your head"Driver: (complies)Officer: "What is the first thing you're supposed to do?"Driver: "I was handing that to you sir . . ."Officer: "You're supposed to tell me you have a weapon"Driver: "I was trying to sir. . . You told me . . ."Officer: "You are supposed to say that right off the god damn bat!"Driver: "I'm sorry I was trying to I swear to God."Officer: "Trying to . . . I was in the fucking god damn car . . ."Officer: "Spin your ass around.". . . [After some additional conversation] . . .Officer: "God damn right cause you're going catch a felony on this one. NOW TAKE A SEAT." (scuffle, crying out)

We need to do away with these loopholes that allow the government to abuse gun owners. The right of the people to keep and bear arms should be respected, and our laws should reflect that by not being littered with lame excuses for invalidating the right. "Duty to inform" laws only breed complacency among the police. Any savvy police officer always assumes that everyone he deals with is carrying a weapon. It seems that the officer involved in this incident was a disgrace to his profession.

I can understand the Ohio officer being upset, but I hope he later realised it was his own fault. He [and his partner] put lives at risk quite unnecessarily by ordering silence, and then ignoring the driver other than to again order him not to speak.